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The race to get Zach Parise signed will take over in full tomorrow afternoon, but the sales pitches are already finding their way into the news.

Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports the Pittsburgh Penguins will pony up a monster offer for Parise in their effort to land a premiere scoring winger to play alongside Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

A long-term deal worth $7-8 million per year for “many years” makes their offer a large one to start. Obviously it’s just a report but getting the amount of money per year gives you the idea of what kind of stratosphere we’re starting off with. For teams like the Red Wings, Wild, Devils, and Kings who are believed to also be in on Parise, the bar is set for them to dive in head first to go after the New Jersey captain.

It’s no surprise that no matter where Zach Parise signs today he’s going to cash in big. But just how big? Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos says it’s going to be a whopper.

Kypreos says anyone looking to land the Devils’ captain will be asked to pay up with two different $12 million signing bonuses. One will be paid right away up front as a means to protect against a possible lockout, the second to be paid up before next season. Yes, $24 million in the first two years of the deal.

Signing bonuses do count against the salary cap and that means if you want to not wind up with a $12 million cap hit, you have to have a long-term deal with less money in the following years to help knock that number down. Should these demands turn out to be true, you’re looking at Parise getting 10 years or more from whoever lands him to keep the cap hit reasonably sane.

We know Pittsburgh’s offer to Parise will be in the $7-8 million per year range, but with the first two years being that large, you’re looking at a very long contract should the Pens be serious about landing Parise. Teams like Detroit, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Ottawa will be hot for him too, but with this sort of demand, the herd should thin out fast.

As per Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — the Penguins are officially out of the Zach Parise sweepstakes.

It’s a big blow for the Pens and GM Ray Shero, who had aggressively cleared the decks in order to make a run at the Devils captain. Shero engineered the Jordan Staal trade at the NHL Entry Draft, then flipped defenseman Zbynek Michalek to Phoenix for a handful of prospects — combined, the deals cleared nearly $9 million in cap space, most of which was projected to go to Parise.

As noted by the Post-Gazette, Parise had been projected as a linemate for Penguins center Sidney Crosby.
The two are friends and ex-Shattuck-St. Mary’s players (though they didn’t actually play together at the Minnesota prep school.)

The Minnesota Wild has now also agreed to terms with free agent forward Zach Parise.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. CHECK BACK FOR MORE DETAILS. ORIGINAL STORY IS BELOW.

The Wild has landed its blue-chip defenseman and is working toward landing the blue-chip forward as well.

After an impressive maneuver Tuesday to get itself in front of free-agent Ryan Suter, the Wild has agreed to terms on a 13-year contract with defenseman Ryan Suter, sources say.

But the Wild’s not done in its attempt to shake a hockey-mad market into a frenzy.

According to sources, the Wild was working on agreeing to terms with Minneapolis-born Zach Parise on a 13-year deal.

If successful, and it appears as if it will be, Parise and Suter are forming a star-studded tandem that can come to Minnesota and perhaps help alter the fortunes of a franchise that has missed the playoffs four consecutive seasons.

Suter, 27, was drafted seventh overall in 2003 and spent his entire seven-year career with the Nashville Predators.

In Predators history, Suter, who spent much of his career being paired with Predators star defenseman Shea Weber, ranks fourth with 542 games, fourth with 200 assists, tied for eighth with 238 points and second with a plus-43.

He scored a career-high 46 points last season and averaged 26 minutes, 30 seconds a game – third-highest in the NHL and a minute higher than any one of his previous seasons.

Suter had such an influence in Nashville, Suter last year publicly requested that the Predators make trades to help their postseason chances. Soon after, Nashville traded for Hal Gill, Andrei Kostitsyn and Paul Gaustad.

Suter’s father, Bob, played on the United States’ 1980 gold-medal winning Olympic team and his uncle, Gary Suter, was a five-time All-Star, a Calder Trophy winner and is a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

His wife, Becky, hails from Bloomington, where her father, Stan Palmer, is said to be entrenched in the youth hockey community.

Parise, 27, the 17th pick in the 2003 draft by the Devils, has spent seven years in New Jersey. He has averaged .82 points per game. Parise ranks fourth in Devils history with 194 goals, ninth with 410 points, tied for fifth with 51 power-play goals, fourth with 37 winning goals and fifth with 1,699 shots.

His best year came in 2008-09 when he scored 45 goals and 94 points.

The Minneapolis-born, Shattuck-St. Mary’s product and Orono resident is the son of former North Stars player and assistant coach J.P. Parise.

Like Suter, he is highly decorated in USA Hockey. Both won a silver medal at the 2010 Olympics, with Parise forcing overtime in the gold-medal game with 24 seconds left.

Tuesday night, Parise told Josh Rimer on nextsportstar.com that he and Suter had been talking throughout this process.

“Ryan’s a great player,” Parise told Rimer. “He’s a top defenseman in this league. Those type of players don’t come around often. They’re tough to find. I’d love to play on a team with a defenseman like Ryan Suter. Immediately you’ve got your top defenseman, immediately you’ve got a power-play guy, you’ve got shutdown guy. Again those guys are hard to find, so to get an opportunity to play with him would be great.”

The Wild recognized early on it would be going up against hefty competition for Parise.
Pittsburgh has Crosby and Malkin, Philadelphia has Giroux, Detroit has Datsyuk and Zetterberg, Chicago has Toews and Hossa.

For Suter, it was mostly going up against Detroit, which was wooing Suter by using Hall of Famer Chris Chelios in its recruitment. Chelios and Suter’s uncle, Gary, are good friends from their days playing for the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Wild? It hasn’t won a playoff round since 2003 and was selling a core of prospects, a potential of a promising future and the chance to be a hero.

In others words, a lot of maybes.

But in a league where there’s no guarantees you can go to a team and win a Stanley Cup every year, the Wild worked to sell both Parise and Suter that they can be the two players, who along with captain, Mikko Koivu could help shape a franchise for the next dozen or so years.